epiglutton

All moved, now!

2010-09-08T12:25:00.000-04:00

Please join me over at
http://blog.patanderson.net

Moving day!

2010-06-16T15:16:00.001-04:00

Hi folks -- I've combined my three blogs and moved them over to my own website. So if you want to keep up on what I've discovered in urban nature, gardening, field-to-table food, come to my writing & photos over at patanderson.net .

One pan: ingredients

2010-05-30T19:55:00.000-04:00

OK, before you get upset at my lousy diet, I had a great big green salad with tomatoes and cucumbers and asparagus, 'kay?

But tonight was meant for leftovers! Actually, I deliberately made leftover potatoes this morning: I peeled and cut up two potatoes and cooked them so I could use them for dinner. I only used one potato: the other one will be used later in the week.

Friday night I did a slooooooow braise of a Boston Butt pork roast. I put in a Dutch oven:
5lb pork roast salted and peppered, then browned on all sides
8 cloves garlic, smashed
1 onion, chopped
2 stalks of celery, cut into 2" lengths
(those vegetable ingredients I sautéed in the pot after I removed the browned roast)
Then I added:
1 can of Guinness beer
2 peeled and chopped carrots
2 peeled and chopped parsnips
2 bay leaves
and about 750ml of water, until the roast was almost submerged.
Bring to a boil on the stove, transfer to slow oven for 5 hours.

So I fork-separated and had some pulled pork off the roast tonight together with the potatoes, and that yummy cheese.

First the potatoes in the cast-iron frying pan with a drizzle of olive oil and a knob of butter. Eventually add the pork (it just needs to warm up). Shortly after, some cheese. Don't try to grate the cheese like I did: just crumble it in your fingers.

Yummy one-pan meal. Hash browns and pulled pork with apple-cinnamon cheese.

That's a cheese with potential. I can see doing a bunch of things with it. Like a grilled cheese sandwich!

Chris' Cheesemongers bag

2010-05-23T21:11:00.003-04:00

Here it is!

Silk screened on both sides with the shop's logo:

I like the orange reverse on the stitched handles. And the fact that the handles are long enough to sling it over my shoulder.

Lots of space in it for things. Two bottle-shaped pockets and a central divider. I shopped at the Market yesterday, and it held a basket of potatoes, one of carrots, one of parsnips, three bunches of asparagus, a bottle of olive oil, two of wine, 5 heads of garlic, 3 hunks of ginger, a pound of mushrooms from Phil's, and some more of that wonderful cheese that I bought last week.

The bags are only $5.00, and very roomy.

Tasty cheese

2010-05-18T22:07:00.002-04:00

I'm a sucker for a good cheese!

I was looking for one last week, before having Oliver and Melissa over for dinner. I went to Chris' Cheesemongers: actually, it was funny how I ended up there. I was next door, at the organic Golden Orchard, buying some zucchini and cucumbers, and told the cashier how much I love using my LCBO partitioned bag for shopping. One of the cheesemongers was right behind me, and promptly told me that if I liked that bag, I'd like the ones they sell at Chris' Cheesemongers even better: longer straps, better compartments, larger size!

Nothing would do but I had to have one of those bags, so I went next door with him, and told him that, in addition to the bag, I wanted a mild cheese to serve at the start of dinner. We started with a pretty uninspired camembert (I think that was my suggestion) and by the third cheese, he had talked me into this, which I had a runny taste of.

Let it come to room temperature, and enjoy the delicate flavour. I served it with some rosemary and sesame flatbreads and some almonds.

It's made of a combination of goat, sheep and cow milk. I'm eating the last of it as I write this. The taste of goat and sheep is there slightly, giving it more character than a straight cow's milk cheese frequently has.

It's imported from Tuscany, $19.95.

Salut! Wine and food festival

2010-05-11T20:39:00.003-04:00

I won tickets to Monday night's chefs duel over crab.
Dang, I wish I was one of the judges, because those of us who were not judges ate tasty appetizers, but no crab!

Here are some pictures I took.

I apologize for the quality: I need to (a)check that my battery is charged before leaving home and (b)check the settings on the point and shoot camera before pointing and shooting! Don't bother enlarging. The pictures look best small :-D

This one is a look down the bar at all the trays of food that had been set out, cleaned, ready to use, depending on what the chef wanted for the competition.

Radicchio, peppers, basil, thyme, green onions, and a lovely hunk of ginger.

Fingerling potatoes! Red baby potatoes! Yukon Golds! Are you hungry yet?

Several types of tomatoes, some dill, apples, cucumbers, and peppers. Oh yeah, some pears, too!

Aromatics: leeks, yellow and red onions, and a whole whack of a tubfull of peeled garlic cloves.

Here we have some plantain, yellow squash, zucchini, red bell peppers, and some mammoth carrots. These aincho baby carrots.

Screams guacamole, doesn't it? A couple of avocados, some limes, lemons, and oranges.

Fresh greenery.

Slab of awesome bacon, the package not yet opened, and some chorizo sausage.

Dairy products! Dang, I missed a shot of the $450 hunk of Parmesan. Just relax and imagine the richness these ingredients brought to the dishes.

Not the secret ingredient! But Ingredients I would have gladly munched, raw, because they looked so fresh.

Aw shucks.
(You didn't think I was going to pass on that, did you?)
Some nice freshly shucked Malpeques.

Cheeeeze, pleeeeeze.
Some boccancino on a skewer with a basil leaf and teeny tomato, plus some maple cheddar from Black River Dairy in Prince Edward county, and some heart-stoppingly wonderful marbelized carmelized onion cheddar, and I don't know the name of the dairy: send it to me and I'll fix this.

Awesome steaks.
Some were used to create a Steak Diane using some mashed potatoes, grated Parmesan cheese and (yum yum) secret ingredient, crab, all mixed together, placed on top of the steak. Me wants. Damn, me not judge, so me didn't get.

Obligatory crowd scene. Actually, it was more crowded looking the other direction.

Master of ceremonies, Dick Snyder, announcing the winner! Chef Gordon Mackie of Far Niente. Chef Bruce Woods of Brassaii put up an admirable fight.

Why I have problems buying processed food when I'm not looking the processor in the eye

2010-05-09T11:48:00.001-04:00

Yet another food recall is happening, this time around some Italian-style processed meats and cheese.

The larger the plant, the greater the chance that one machine's lack of cleanliness is going to impact a whole bunch of food, because everything from that line (or perhaps the plant) gets recalled.

It just freaks me out how much food is being recalled these days: worse in the USA, where food poisoning can result in millions of pounds of meat being recalled and destroyed.

Playing with my food again

2010-04-28T20:29:00.000-04:00

They had the cutest spoons at T&T Supermarket. I couldn't resist. Somehow, I just pictured serving a lovely little amuse gueule on them at my next dinner party. So tonight, when I was cooking up scallops and edamame for dinner, I... decided to play a little.

Ever buy something unknown?

2010-04-27T14:42:00.000-04:00

Like, an ingredient you've not used before? Something you have no idea how to prepare?

I need to look some things up.
I love anchovies. I like white anchovies, I like salted anchovies, I like salted anchovies in olive oil... and then I saw these at T&T supermarket (I biked over there yesterday afternoon).

I have no idea what I'm going to do with them. Maybe they're something that I add to soup, or grind up, or just munch on for a snack (like dried capelin, which my Dad used to buy long ago in Montreal).

I'll do some research and let you know what transpires!

Yes, I finished the soup!

2010-04-24T19:29:00.000-04:00

But forgot to blog about it!
It ended up taking the whole evening to make the stock, so I made the soup the following evening.

I had two bunches of wild leeks, and I cut them apart at the bottom of the leaf.
Sautéed the bulbs and stems along with a couple of onions, and then added the stock from the previous night together with some potatoes, cut into 6 to 8 pieces each, depending on the size of the potato. There were probably about 3 pounds of potatoes. Also added some black pepper. Would have added some nutmeg, but I seemed to have used it all up. Must remember to buy some more.

Simmered until the potatoes were cooked, and then roughly chopped and added the leek leaves to the mix, and cooked for about 5 more minutes.

Removed from heat, waited for it to cool a bit, and then used my stick blender to turn it into a homogenous soup.

It's good hot, it's good cold. I like it cold with a little drizzle of white truffle olive oil!

I've frozen it in two sizes: hefty meal and soup appetizer.

Potato and wild leek soup

2010-04-19T19:25:00.001-04:00

I'm starting it! I make some chicken stock before getting into the potatoes and wild leeks.
On the stove I have a big pot with
3 onions, quartered;
3 stalks of celery, chunked;
6 (very small) cloves of garlic, smashed;
1 kg of chicken backs from Rowe Farms (was only able to get those today: their stall at the north St. Lawrence Market was out of them on Saturday).
2 big pinches of kosher salt;
A flat palm's worth of basil
Same of savoury.

So after that simmers for a few hours I'll have chicken stock.
Then I'll start making the soup.

No, it's not for dinner tonight :-D

Cold & hungry

2010-04-19T11:38:00.001-04:00

Fixed up the water thingie in the back yard again so it's flowing freely (catkins from the male cottonwood tree just to the south had blocked the water intake). Sat outside quietly for about an hour and a half to take pictures of migratory birds. (They've been uploaded and added to my Backyard Birds set at Flickr).

Came inside and wanted a grilled sandwich for a late breakfast.

Got out some cheddar that I bought from Montfort at the north Farmers' Market at the St. Lawrence Market on Saturday. A hunk of side bacon, oven roasted, came from Witteveen's in the south market, the baguette was from Future Bakery, and the dijon... well, I had that already in the fridge.

Assembled the sandwich, heated up the cast iron frying pan with a little olive oil and butter, and put it on at a medium-low heat, bacon side down.

Carefully turned it to be cheese side down, watched the cheese melt, removed to a plate.

That was good. Now I'll have a cup of chamomile tea while I go through the bird pictures.

Wow, Grocery Gateway's on the ball

2010-04-17T09:48:00.000-04:00

I use Grocery Gateway to buy the heavy stuff: kitty litter, laundry detergent, milk, cleaning supplies, juice. Since I'd have to take a cab to bring it home, it's even easier if I go online and order it and get them to deliver. I tweeted yesterday that I missed the cutoff for Saturday delivery, and now Grocery Gateway is following my tweets. They're using the new media intelligently!

Know your meat source

2010-04-16T16:48:00.001-04:00

More and more people are becoming vegetarians and vegans. When I read the linked article, I understand more of them.
I'm still doing what I can to purchase my meat from small organic establishments: Witteveen at the St. Lawrence Market on weekdays, the farmers who sell pig, goat, and lamb at the north market on Saturdays.

Please don't buy meat from CAFOs. If you haven't seen Food, Inc., watch it. Read some of the books that have been written in the last few years (including Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food).

Oh -- that link: Tom Philpott's Grist.org. Michael Ruhlmann pointed to this article in a tweet today.

Brunch at the Black Hoof Café

2010-04-11T09:47:00.001-04:00

Yesterday morning I had the pleasure of having brunch with Cheryl from Autodesk at the Black Hoof's newest spot, the café directly across the street from the original.

We arrived at 11am, which seems like a good time to go: only had about a 5 minute wait until we were seated (line up was out the door by the time we left.

Yummy menu. We had difficulties deciding what to get!

Eventually we settled on tongue grilled cheese sandwich (Cheryl, who accepted the waiter's recommendation to get that over the blood sausage & crepes, since she had not eaten here before) and pig tails & grits (Pat). Plus French press coffee (two pots thereof).

We shared :-)

The tongue grilled cheese sandwich was wonderfully rich and flavourful: swiss cheese, and the tongue had been turned into a preserved meat somehow (didn't ask for info, unfortunately) and sliced very thin -- was a very rich corned beef kind of taste.

The pig tails were shredded meat that was shaped into kind of a rectangular sausage that had been crisped on the outside: yummy, and didn't have to deal with all those little bones. The grits were creamy, tasty, a little sweet, and topped by two perfectly poached eggs. A little crispy chip (tasted like Munchos -- remember them?) was on the top and gave some crunch to the dish.

We still had room for a little more, so Cheryl ordered the donut holes, stuffed with marrow and rhubarb jam. Little gems, about the size of a marble, dusted with sugar. Added that little bit of sweetness to say that the meal was done (that's when we had the second pot of coffee).

I'll be back. There was so much on the menu that looked good! Definitely have to try the suckling pig benny: three people at the next table all ordered it, and it looked scrumptious.

I'm also curious about fried artichokes & broth.

Unlike at the parent restaurant, there seem to be a number of items that a vegetarian could enjoy here: granola, salad, rapini pesto & pasta, and toast with jam and goat butter. Food for all!

More arugula

2010-04-05T20:26:00.002-04:00

Tonight's dinner was scallops and pine nuts on sautéed arugula with garlic.
It was good.

Cobb Salad Variant

2010-04-04T19:35:00.002-04:00

Had lots of leftovers in the fridge, so time to put them all together!
I had
Diced turkey thigh (cooked)
Diced maple smoked bacon (cooked)
Confit of sliced mushrooms
Cherry tomatoes
Baby arugula
Ripe avocado
and some Bolthouse Yogurt & Chunky Blue Cheese dressing.

So that was dinner.

If I were to do it again, I'd probably add some pine nuts so something would crunch.

Artisanal Bread recipe!

2010-04-02T07:46:00.001-04:00

My friend Sandy has done a mash-up of bread recipes.
She came up with the following. Now, the really cool thing about this is you don't need to make the loaves at once: make a loaf, put the rest of the dough back in the fridge until you want to make the next loaf, then just pinch off a hunk and make fresh bread without going through the work of doing it all from scratch each time.

Makes 4 1-lb loaves.
3 cups lukewarm water (about 100F)
1-1/2 tbsp granulated yeast
1-1-/2 tbsp kosher or other coarse salt
6-1/2 cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour
cornmeal for dusting
To prepare dough:
Add yeast and salt to water in a 5-quart bowl or lidded plastic food container. Don't worry about getting it all to dissolve.
Mix in all of the flour at once with a wooden spoon or in a large food processor/mixer with a dough attachment until the mixture is uniform and all flour is incorporated. If mixing by hand and it is difficult to mix all the flour in, wet hands and work by hand. Don't knead the dough. The dough will be wet and loose enough to take the shape of the container.
Cover (not airtight) and allow to rise at room temperature until it flattens on top or begins to collapse, approximately 2 hours. The dough can be used for baking at this point, although it will be easier to work with after refrigeration.
Refrigerate for up to 2 weeks, cutting off and baking portions as described below.
Dough can be frozen in 1-lb portions; defrost overnight in the refrigerator prior to baking.

Baking:
Dust a piece of waxed paper or parchment paper with cornmeal.
Sprinkle surface of refrigerated dough with flour, then pull up and cut off a 1-lb piece (about the size of a grapefruit) using a serrated knife. Sprinkle liberally with flour to keep it from sticking to your hands and to work into the dough. Gently stretch the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all sides to form a ball with a smooth top, and create the gluten cloak for rising. Most of the flour will fall off. Dust the top with more cornmeal, since this will become the bottom of the loaf.
Rest the loaf on the paper and let rise, uncovered, for about 40 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 450F for at least 20 minutes with a covered pot or Pyrex dish in the oven.
When the oven and dish are at heat, put your hand under the paper, lift the loaf, drop it upside down into the pot (removing the paper), and cover the pot.
Cover and bake for 30 minutes.
Uncover and bake for an additional 15-30 minutes until crust is brown.
Lift out and cool on a wire rack.
Variations:

Feel free to add herbs, cheese, or substitute different types of flour: you can use this recipe as a base to make all kinds of breads.

Oops! I did it again

2010-03-17T23:48:00.002-04:00

Bought an organic chicken, and put it breast side up in a roasting pan, decorated with anchovies and coarsely ground black pepper. I gave it an initial spritz of olive oil, and after that, just basted it with juices every fifteen minutes. It was almost 4 pounds: that's 20 mins/pound plus 20 mins., was 1 hour 40 minutes. It was awesome. I had problems stopping myself from eating.

Something I did with some of the rendered chicken fat: I had a bunch of small button mushrooms (around 15) that had been in a paper bag in the fridge for a couple of weeks. I truly advocate using paper bags for mushrooms: if you don't eat them immediately, they dry -- they don't turn slimy, they don't get mouldy. There's a use for mushrooms that are a bit dry -- they're really great when you cook them! There is less moisture that has to be removed by the cooking process. So tonight I cleaned the 'shrooms, removed the bottoms of the stems, and cut the little ones in half and the larger ones in quarters. Took a couple of basters worth of liquids from the cooking chicken and put them in a small cast iron pan, brought it up to temperature, then added the mushrooms for 6 minutes. Oh gawd, they were good. Finished them with a little cream, and served on a toasted English muffin.

Saved the rest of the chicken drippings in a container in the fridge so I can repeat the experience, but will try more and different 'shrooms next time: gotta go to the St. Lawrence Mkt and check out what they've got, and try cooking them up.

I'm fancying a mushroom paté made of meaty mushrooms with some butter and well cooked eggplant. I may give it a try in the near future!

My paté recipes

2010-03-09T00:10:00.003-05:00

I started making paté while I was a university student, too broke to afford to buy some. It's definitely an inexpensive dish to make. I used to use a blender; now I use a food processor.

I've been through a number of variations through the years. I started with chicken livers, ground pork, and butter. Over time, I ditched the ground pork, have sometimes substituted duck fat for butter, and have added other ingredients. Once I added curry. That worked. Once I tried to make one that tasted garlicky. Wasn't able to succeed, but knew I'd never be able to succeed when I put a half-head of garlic in, couldn't taste it, but started burping garlic a couple of hours later. Not something I'd recommend!

It slowly evolved so that, at its simplest, it's 1 pound of chicken livers to 2/3 pound of butter and 1 medium onion, season to taste.

Here are the recipes in their current incarnation. The idea to add apples came from a Jamie Kennedy paté I had a number of years ago at his Wine Bar. I added Calvados after I saw a recipe using it on the web somewhere. The recipe with duck fat stems from me corrupting a Jacques Pepin recipe.

Paté #1
This is the basic recipe -- you can add spices and herbs to it to do what you want. I've used basil, Italian herbs, green peppercorns, and even did it once with curry powder.
1/2 lb butter
1 medium onion, chopped
about 1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
2 apples peeled, cored, diced
2 oz calvados
1 lb chicken livers

Making paté takes time. Take the time to do it right: if you try to rush things, you'll have too much moisture in the paté, and it will be too soft. In a small frying pan, melt a couple of tablespoons of butter and add the apples. Cook them slowly until most of the moisture is gone from them and they have carmelized on the outside. This will take about a half-hour or so.
While that's happening, in a 10" frying pan (cast iron's really good for this) melt a couple of tablespoons of butter and add the mushrooms. Cook them down until they've released all their water and become dark and meaty. Add the onion and sweat it. Add the calvados, and cook the liquid down until it's almost all gone. Add the rest of the butter, and when the water in it has boiled away, add the chicken livers. Add the apples. Cook until the livers are pink inside, and remove from heat. When cooled, process in a food processor until smooth. Spoon the mixture into a plastic-lined loaf pan, cover with plastic laying directly on the pate (otherwise it oxidizes and turns gray). Refrigerate.

Paté #2
Stolen idea from Jacques Pepin, but I'm using chicken liver instead of duck (and most cleaned ducks these days don't seem to come with the livers in them!)
1/2 lb duck fat
2 shallots, finely chopped
3/4 lb chicken livers
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the duck fat, and give it 15-20 minutes over a medium-low heat, until it starts to get a little bit of color to it. Add the shallots, and give them a minute. Then (slowly! you don't want hot fat splashing) add the chicken livers. Cook until pink inside, then remove from heat. When cool, process in a food processor, and press through a sieve. Spoon into a plastic-lined loaf pan, or small jars if giving as a gift, or a crock.

Secret Pickle Dinner Party 2: with 6 courses, in 12 pictures

2010-03-07T20:37:00.011-05:00

Oh gawd it was good.
To celebrate each other's birthday, Sandy and Betty and I take each other out. It's usually a surprise to the birthday girl where we're going to go.
Last night, we started with martinis at a cute little bar on Parliament with lots of pairs of traditional furniture and a trio of chandeliers.

Given the setup, it is obvious that this isn't where we are going to eat. Sandy and Betty check several times to see if I know where we are going... I confess I have no idea. I knew of a couple of restaurants in the area, but nothing really birthdaylicious springs to mind. So we sip our martinis, slip on our coats, then sally forth to the Fair Trade Jewellery Atelier, where dinner #2 of the Secret Pickle Supper Club is about to begin. (You'll have to ask Alexa about the name!)

We open the door, and are met with chef Matt Kantor of Little Kitchen at his serving table, right in the front window. Beyond him is a table set for, oh gosh, at least two dozen people. Cloak room and aperitifs in the back.

We go to the back, doff our coats, and pick up a Campari and soda (it's been a while since I've had one of those: I had forgotten how much I enjoy them). And I snap this picture, which looks to the front of house. Drinks in hand, we mill about, meet people, and eventually sit down.

At each table setting is a booklet for us of the night's adventures in eating Piedmontese food and drinking suitable wines.

Oh, this looks good.
It's going to be a very good evening.

I confess I miss one photo, and that's of the yummy breadsticks (Grissini del Olio) that we have to go along with the aperitif. Beautiful crunch, right amount of salt, nice herbacious flavours, probably the best breadsticks I've ever had.

On a flatscreen TV behind me, there are Flickr pictures of Piedmont showing the entire evening, except for when it's decided we have to see this bizarre Russian lounge lizard TV act from what looks like the '80's.

Next, it is on to the antipasto: I grab a couple of shots while Matt plates things, but realize half way through the evening that my battery is low low low, so there are only a few shots of food-in-progress.

This is Vitello Tonnato. Delicate beautiful veal tenderloin, buttery soft, with a tuna sauce. What an amazing complementary pair: the delicacy of the veal, and the stout flavours of the tuna sauce work really well together. The wine for this course is Demarie Roero Arneis 2008 (thanks, Alexa, for MCing and the awesome booklets that you put together!)

Here's an up-close look at my plate: delicate pieces of veal with sauce, capers, and some tarragon.

Our next appetizer is a tart of artichoke and goat cheese with bagna cauda: a sauce I am truly in love with!
Bagna cauda is made of anchovies, garlic, parsley and olive oil (and some recipes use butter, too). Matt's recipe uses some butter. In the same way that veal and tuna work together, this little tart and bagna cauda function as a team. The arugula salad on top adds some contrasting bitterness, and it is a great combination.

The accompanying wine is Ascheri Fontanelle Barbera D'Alba 2008.

So where do we go after these delicious appetizers? To a stunning risotto: Risotto di Barolo con fungi (although we have a Via Collina Dolcetto di Diano d'Alba wine instead of a Barolo).

It is a bit of a surprise when we first get it, because we're not used to seeing risotto made with a red wine, which makes a pink dish. It is totally scrumptious... smooth, with a bit of a bite at the middle of the rice grains. Lots of flavour. Wonderful marriage of flavours of rice, wine, and mushroom.

This dish is paired with the Dolcetto, the same wine used to make it.

Next is the main course, the serious meat course. And Matt takes his meat courses seriously, as I discovered when he cooked an amazing dinner for four for Sandy. This course is described as Bollito Misto — mixed boiled meats. Imagine meats from different animals all slowly braised together, so none of the meat is tough, and all of it is flavourful, and flavoured with the other meats and vegetables that are also cooked in the same pot. We are given a variety of tongue, veal, capon, pork feet, and brisket, too, I believe. Veggies are potatoes and carrots. The two tasty sauces in the upper right corner are roasted pepper puree and anchovy spread. Rawr!! The paired wine was Tenuta San Mauro Barbaresco.

Where do you go after this? for a stretch, and give the chef a little break maybe (did you get a break, Matt?).

After these dishes, two more courses remain: first, the cheese course with Testun al Barolo (which has a strange connection for me: that was the last food I had in mid-December that tasted good, before I was struck by pine mouth {caused by a problem with pine nuts which lasted a couple of weeks). Alex Farms was selling it as a Christmas cheese, so I bought a hunk for my parents. It's a great cheese, on the mild/medium side, and packed with grape must from the wine fermentation process. This is matched with a salad of arugula and shaved fennel, a truly scrumptious combination. The matched wine is Cantina Parroco Nebbiolo Langhe 2007.

And then, on to dessert! If you know me, you know that I'm really not a big dessert fan. This dessert, however, is really yummy. It isn't over sweet (which tends to be my prob. with most 'serts). Tarta di Nocciole with poached pears in red wine.

A thin slice of a hazelnut cake (which has some flour and whole eggs as well as lots of ground hazelnuts) reminds me of a flourless, unleavened almond Passover cake my Dad bought... oh, gosh, must have been around 1972. The cake is wonderful. I could gladly eat it for breakfast every day. The sauce drizzled around and under is based on Nutella, and in the ramekin are some delicious poached pears with some ginger, to add some brightness to the dish.

This dessert is accompanied by a sparkling red wine, Piemonte Cantina San Pancrazio Brachetto 2008. Really good pairing.

There is yet one more thing to happen. Joey, the Accordion Guy was there. I didn't realize that he had brought his accordion to sing me a happy birthday!

Pot roast for friends

2010-03-07T19:07:00.002-05:00

I had the opportunity to make a post roast dinner for some friends recently.
I went to the grocery store, and was surprised that all they had in the meat section was tiny little 0.5Kg pot roasts. Not enough for a family of four with two sons in their late teens!
So I asked the girl at the deli counter if she controlled the meat counter as well, to which she replied that no, there was someone else, and she'd get him.
A young man came out, we spoke, he had no brisket, but would see what he did have. He came back with a big blade roast, and said it was the smallest of what he had out back. It's not the tenderest cut, but it's got big flavour, and makes for a good pot roast if treated well so it doesn't seize up.
I bought it.
I brought it home.
I rinsed it off, applied "steak spice" and salt and pepper and let it air-dry and come up to temperature -- about two hours.

With my roast nice and dry, I put the dutch oven on the stove, just below medium, and put some oil in the bottom of it. When it was shimmering, I added the pot roast, and gave it about 5 minutes a side (if you pretend it's a cube with six sides, it works better than you might think).

Fully seared, I then removed the roast from the pot, and deglazed with about a half of a carton of organic vegetable stock, and to that I added:

about 2 tablespoons of tomato paste,
2 bay leaves,
1 chopped onion,
2 chopped scallions,
4 smashed garlic cloves,
about a half-litre of water,

and brought to a simmer.

Then I put the roast back in the pot, and it was pretty much submerged: only a couple of centimeters of it was in air. Lid on the pot, and then into a really slow oven: 225F for one hour per pound. This roast was about 7 pounds, so it went in overnight, from midnight to 7am.

Took it out, put the meat thermometer in, and it was well done.

Wrapped foil around it, and reduced the liquid in the pot to about half, then puréed it with a stick blender, thickened it with about 2 tbsp of flour, and added some parsley, chives, and pepper to the gravy.

While I was goofing around with the gravy, I put into a roasting pan some onions, potatoes, squash, and carrots, and drizzled and tossed them all with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted them for a couple of hours at 350F.

Assembled everything into a roasting pan for delivery and easy reheating (well, the gravy's in a plastic container) and covered with foil.

Oh. The pot roast weighed 3.14kg. Does that mean I can call it a "pot pi"?

Simple dinner: grilled meat, greens.

2010-02-19T22:11:00.002-05:00

Last Friday I bought a fair amount of meat from Witteveen's in the St. Lawrence Market. I still had the three lamb loin chops in the refrigerator tonight, so I had to use them for dinner.

Tonight's dinner was simple: lamb chops grilled on a cast iron grill pan, with some steak spice rubbed into them, and kale and asparagus.

For the meat, I brought it up to room temperature, seasoned it, and then tossed it onto a cast iron grill pan that I had lightly oiled and brought up to about a 4 (out of 10) in temperature. The oil was smoking, I put the exhaust fans on, and cooked the chops for 10 minutes a side -- which is about double what I give them in a flat cast iron pan. The raised grill lines impart a lovely pattern on the meat, but it does mean that most of the meat is not in contact with the heat source, so it takes about twice as long to cook.

For the veggies, I cleaned and prepped, and only cooked them while the chops were resting. Kale, torn to bits and microwaved for 2 minutes; asparagus microwaved for 45 seconds. (I wish I could remember where I bought the asparagus because it's the grittiest asparagus I've had in at least 10 years. I spent 5 minutes washing 5 measly stalks, and it was still gritty.)

I had some heliodoro rosemary cheese from Alex Farms in the fridge that I knew would pair well with the lamb and would be very tasty on the greens. It had been there a while, and had gotten quite hard. The vegetable peeler, my first choice of tool, wasn't up to the task. Absolutely no go. I might as well have tried to peel the bricks on my house. Forget about picturesque white curls sitting on the greens!

Next, I tried ye olde box grater. Hah. Even more useless than the vegetable peeler. The cheese just rode down the outside of the grater like it was on ball bearings. Pressure on the cheese caused it to break into some pieces, but no grating happened.

Then, Lee Valley to the rescue. Pulled out the microplane, which used to be sold for woodworking purposes, until the Lee family discovered that chefs were using them. Man, does that thing bite into things! I can imagine what it would do with wood, because it certainly did the job with my (almost) petrified heliodoro. It turned it into lovely light little gratings, as you can see.

Bread pudding made from banana bread

2010-02-06T21:44:00.002-05:00

Going to go to Steve & Rob's for dinner. Will take wine. That goes without saying. Am offered a choice of bringing bread or a dessert.

I very seldom make dessert. In the last 15 years, I've made two apple-blue cheese tarts, and one boozy bread pudding. I volunteer to make dessert again.

And opt for doing a bread pudding.

I think it was a dinner that Matt Kantor did -- Sandy's win of a gourmet dinner at home -- that made me think of a bread pudding based on banana bread with some nutella on top.

So that's what I made! I confess, I cheated and bought the banana bread.

Cut it into slices, toasted it in the oven, and then cubed it.

Put the cubes into a loaf pan, covered with a very rich custard of 3 eggs, 2 cups of cream, 1/3 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla. Then drizzled a whole lot of nutella over the top of the whole thing, and popped it into the oven until done.

I was surprised that the Nutella didn't melt more, really surprised.

The next day, dinner day, I bought some scrumptious Belgian dark chocolate truffles at Domino's in the basement of the St. Lawrence market, and some low-fat vanilla Hagen Dazs ice cream (it was the only vanilla they had, and believe me, the bread pudding wasn't low fat!).

At dessert time, I put the truffles in a microwaveable measuring cup, and nuked them until they melted.

Sliced the pudding, which I had warmed in the oven while we ate dinner.

To serve, I put a slice of pudding, a scoop of ice cream, and poured some molten truffles over all. Sorry I don't have a shot of that!

Catching up: cod tongues

2010-02-01T21:29:00.003-05:00

Cod tongues. Something I hadn't had in quite a while. I grew up with my grandfather bringing packages of them and other Newfoundland delights to Montreal each year, where he spent winters after my grandmother died.

I hoped to have some a couple of years ago when my sister and I went to Iceland (they call them cod chins there), but never got around to that or puffin or other strangenesses of the land.

I had a hankering for cod tongues, yes I did.

I saw these in the freezer cabinet at Mike's at the St. Lawrence Market -- oh gosh: must be over a year now. And so I bought them. And being a fool, I left them in my refrigerator's freezer, which goes through freeze/thaw cycles fast enough to create ice crystals in two months. I should have put them in my chest freezer.

Alas, it was a long time before I rescued these from the freezer. They were vacuum packed, but still showed signs of freezer burn.

I cooked these (almost) the proper way. The truly proper way would have been to start by making a brunoise of salt pork fat and frying it until it renders enough fat into the pan to cook the cod tongues. I didn't have any salt pork, so I put some olive oil in the pan.

The cod tongues were dredged in flour to which some salt and pepper has been added, then plunked into the medium frying pan. Depending on the size, you could fry them up to 5 minutes a side.

They don't look revolting. Actually, they look pretty much as they should.

But boy, were they tough! And tough is not what you expect from cod tongues. Some parts of it should be almost jelly-like in texture.

I ate a few with some horseradish mustard (and ate the kale) and I hate to say, put the rest in the compost bin. Next time I'll not leave them in the freezer so long.

Roasting a bird with Anchovies on it - part deux

2010-01-30T18:30:00.005-05:00

I did it!

I roasted a fowl using anchovies instead of salt.

Given it was an experiment, and just me at home, I didn't want to do something large like a turkey. So I bought an organic cornish hen over at Whitehouse Meats at the St. Lawrence Market. It was only 1-1/4 lbs, so I wouldn't be wasting a lot of food if it turned out horrible.

Rinsed the bird, did the wing fold over so they don't flop, and placed it on its back, so it would be breast side up. Peeled and halved an onion, and stuffed it in the cavity. Opened a can of Spanish anchovies that I had at home that were wrapped around capers. They were harder in texture than most anchovies I've bought in the past. Still, I spread a few of them across the bird's breast and nestled some of the capers in places like the leg joints. Not a whole lot of fat on the bird, so I used a bit of olive oil.

Basted a few times while it was cooking (I gave it 1 hour and 15 at just below 350F), and gradually the anchovies softened, and I smashed them around a little.

While it was resting, I microwaved some kale I had washed and torn into bite-sized pieces. Gave it a light sprinkling of sesame oil, tossed, and put them both on the dinner plate.

Verdict? I really enjoyed the taste. It wasn't overly fishy, but the anchovies provided some of that "umami" feel that makes food really mouth satisfying. I'll definitely do it again, and next time, I might smear some truffle paste on it, too!

Addendum: last week I did a 1.5kg organic chicken the same way. I needed to start basting earlier than I did, because the anchovy fillets didn't break down as much. But it was still very tasty.

Completed the oxtail soup

2010-01-24T22:25:00.003-05:00

After roasting the meat for a couple of hours and then simmering it for another three, I finished making the soup today. I took it out of the fridge, scraped the fat off the top, and warmed it up: this was a necessary first step, as it was rich with gelatin, and quite solid.

After it was warm, I removed all the meat and bones (and bay leaves), and chopped and added the vegetables to the simmering broth:
carrots
celery
halved grape tomatoes
sliced cremini mushrooms
chopped celeriac
quartered & sliced Jerusalem artichokes

and let them cook slowly in the broth while I stripped the meat off the bones.

I then added the meat back to the soup, and when it had come up to temperature, checked for seasoning. I added some more salt, some dried chives, parsley, a couple of dashes of Worcestershire sauce, a couple of dashes of liquid smoke (when I tasted the soup, I thought: "hmm. bacon would have been good" but I didn't have any, so just a little liquid smoke. Not enough that it's a strong presence. It lurks in the background).

Then the final ingredient: some chopped frozen spinach. It needed something green. At that point, I turned the heat off (it was hot enough to cook the spinach), and waited for it to cool down. I had intended to add some pot barley to the soup, but only remembered that when I was putting the spinach in, so much too late. The barley will have to go in another soup another time.

10 servings of soup have now gone into the freezer.

Going to make some oxtail soup

2010-01-20T19:05:00.004-05:00

Bought about 2Kg of oxtails today, some shallots, some Jerusalem artichokes, a celeriac, red wine, and some pot barley. Have some carrots, celery, and onions. I think it's going to be a two-step process: slow roast the oxtails and shallots tonight, and sllllloooooooowly simmer the soup tomorrow. I may even add some chopped up spinach near the end, to put some green in it.
First, cut up a few large shallots.

Rinse and dry the oxtails.

Toss them in the pot.After roasting for a couple of hours, they carmelize quite nicely. When it cooled down, I put the pot in the fridge overnight.

No pictures, but the next day I emptied a half-bottle of red wine into the pot and enough water to cover the rivets on the pot, as well as three bay leaves, some juniper berries, and some thyme, and slowly simmered it for 3 hours, covered.

Time to catch up on my reading!

2010-01-17T22:08:00.000-05:00

I asked for a couple of books for Christmas, and got three!

Michael Ruhlman Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking

Michael Symon (with Michael Ruhlman) Live to Cook: Recipes and Techniques to Rock Your Kitchen

Parragon Press Perfect Tapas

So I've got lots of reading to do. I've dipped into all three books, and like what I see. Now it's time to get serious and try out some food things based on the ratios, techniques, and recipes I learn!

Little Kitchen: scrumptious dinner @skemsley's!

2010-01-10T19:38:00.002-05:00

Oh, what a delicious over-the top evening. Sandy won a dinner for 4, prepared in her home, by Little Kitchen chef Matt Kantor. We had a great time.

Betty and I arrived at Sandy's a little on the early side, but Betty, being the wise sister that she is, had a bottle of prosecco in hand, so Sandy, Damir, Betty and I all toasted the evening-to-come. Sandy, feel free to comment about what the different wines were that we had with these courses!

Shortly after 6, Matt Kantor, proprietor of Little Kitchen, phoned up, and Damir helped him carry goodies and cooking items upstairs.

Although I took this photo at the end of the night, I thought I'd place it here as the first picture, so you know who Sandy is, and get to know Matt, too.

It was time for the festivities to begin!

First dish of the night was Beet and Orange a la Heston.
The beet gelée, surprise, surprise, is the orange-colored one. And the red gelée comes from blood oranges. Blumenthal, eat your heart out :-)

It was followed by properly toothsome Gulf Shrimp that gently yielded to a deliciously moist flesh once past the exterior, served with an excellent charmoula sauce. We didn't leave any on the plate. The charmoula recipe is on Little Kitchen's website. We started fantasizing about all the possible uses of charmoula...

Sun chokes (Jerusalem artichokes). Pretty much one of the best soups we've ever ever had. So lovely, rich, flavourful, and creamy that it made us swoon. The topping of double-smoked bacon lardons and perfectly cooked shiitake mushrooms added contrasting flavours and textures. Really excellent, excellent soup.

How do you follow something like that? In Matt Kantor's universe, you serve something even more outrageous. In this case, it was a perfectly seared scallop with a round of apple and some purée, and a side of raw scallop, fennel and purple potato. It's called batting 1000, folks.

The standard for multiple course meals is that one goes from light to heavier and richer dishes. The next one really knocked our socks off. I had only thought of cocoa pasta being served as a dessert: wow, was I limiting things! Matt combined a cocoa Fazoletti with a wild boar ragu for this stunning dish.

The next course brought more richness: braised lamb that had been cooked in a tagine, moulded in a cabbage leaf, served atop an eggplant puree, and a cucumber and citrus salad to the side. Wow. Extremely tasty. Taste of some traditional Moroccan spices in with the lamb really took us to North Africa. I loved the way the cabbage leaf translucently covered the lamb. It was glorious.

Ah, and on to the finale: French toast with an ice cream of banana and white chocolate, topped with toasted hazelnuts, and a caramel drizzle. Can life get any better?

Not much; really, this was so fine.

I ate for the first time today at 3pm: was still full from last night. Oh my, that was a fine meal, in the best possible epiglutton tradition.

Something to make an epiglutton lose enthusiasm: pine mouth

2009-12-17T22:16:00.003-05:00

Since yesterday afternoon, I've had a horrid, nasty, bitter taste in my mouth. I've been trying to figure out what caused it, and have gone websurfing.
Other than things that aren't the case (jaundice, diabetes, heavy metal poisoning, tooth decay, pregnancy) I was running up against a number of dead-ends, until I stumbled on one article, which led to another, and another.

There is a problem with some pine nuts that are out there. They cause a documented problem that starts a day or more after consumption: everything tastes bitter. Nasty bitter. Like that nail polish they used to use on kids who bit their nails.

I'm going to talk to the restaurant I had lunch on Tuesday: they may want to stop putting the pignoles on the gnocci. For now, at least.

Some articles referencing the problem:

On Epicurious in May
On Epicurious in September (the problem seems to be becoming more widespread)
Roger Hyam's blog, from last fall

What's causing it? There seem to be several theories, several different places people have bought pine nuts from that have caused the problem. Maybe they're from China. X bought his from Trader Vic's. Y bought hers from Costco. The Z's bought theirs at Sainburys. At this point, I haven't seen a definitive answer, but I am taking some consolation in the news that it will go away and my taste will return to normal.

Blue Haze

2009-12-11T21:37:00.001-05:00

OMG.
I was there, at the St. Lawrence Market, in Scheffler's. Just to buy some cocktail pumpernickel bread. And then I saw it.

Something I've not seen before.

Something that combines some of my favorite flavours.

Blue Haze cheese. It starts life in Quebec, then is brought to Ontario for finishing. Google blue haze cheese. The first three items that come up are about this cheese. This Globe and Mail article has details.

What makes it special?
It's smoked blue cheese.

It combines those wonderful smoky flavours with those wonderful blue cheese flavours.

Doesn't that just make you salivate? Taste it. It will make your toes curl.

Betty & Sandy: yes, you're going to taste it Saturday night.

How can I not love a blog called Porkosity?

2009-12-07T22:35:00.002-05:00

Sandy pointed me there today. It's Corey Mintz' food blog. Today he reveals that Black hoof has opened a Café. Oh my.

Read Corey's blog. He's just started it, and also has an article about Sanagan's (butcher in Kensington). Joe Fiorito had an article about it within the last few weeks, too.

From now on, you'll be able to find a link to Porkosity over on the right.

I've never wanted a basement fridge before

2009-12-06T08:22:00.000-05:00

But today I read Michael Ruhlman's blog item on aging eggnog, and how his 2-year-old eggnog tastes. He aged it in a basement fridge, stuck it in the back, and left it there. That would be pretty hard to do if it was in the fridge in my kitchen.

The recipe? He got it from Chowhound. Here it is.

It being the eggnog season, and all that.

Pho who the bell tolls

2009-11-28T22:18:00.000-05:00

Oh, it tolls for me, because I ate too much.
Big bowl of Chicken Pho at Hanoi 3 Seasons on Queen East (between Caroline and Larchmount). Fragrant, steamy, with lovely flavours of lime, cilantro, ginger, a touch of coconut? and basil in the broth. And a bird's eye pepper to just add a little edge. I only started going to Hanoi 3 Seasons in the spring. I found out tonight that it's when the weather gets cold that it really fills up, as people come in search of that delightful bowl of steaming broth, rice noodles, and other goodies. Next time I might try the rare beef pho.

I had a dream...

2009-11-27T18:40:00.000-05:00

Back in the summer.
That Chef Lynn Crawford and her significant other moved next door, and all the neighbours were terrified to invite her over because they were afraid to serve her inferior food.

Well, it's sort of coming true.

Chef Lynn Crawford has bought out The Citizen with Cheri Stinson, who she has frequently paired with on Restaurant Makeover. The Citizen isn't quite in Leslieville, it's the neighbourhood next door (Call it Riverside, call it Queen/Broadview, call it Lower Riverdale).

Before it was The Citizen, it was the second home of Riverside Cafe, where Signe Langford used to do such wonderful things with mussels in a wee tiny space.

Set to open next year in March, we'll have to see if all the neighbouring restaurants panic like the neighbours did in my dream.

More details at The Toronto Star (I'm not sure how long the link will remain live).

Tasty snack: grilled cheese sandwich

2009-11-21T18:20:00.001-05:00

You don't think I'd make it with Wonderbread and Kraft slices, do you?

I took a couple of diagonal slices of baguette, lightly buttered the outside cuts, and schmeared some Kozlik's horseradish mustard on the inside cuts. The cheese? Some boschetto al tartufo.

The last time I made a grilled cheese sandwich was at my parents' sometime over 30 years ago, and they had a waffle iron/griddle. I had to make do in a cast-iron pan using a sturdy spatula.

It was tasty, if I say so myself.

Roasting a bird with Anchovies on it

2009-11-21T18:13:00.000-05:00

I wish I could say that you heard it here first, but I read about it from a link from the J-Walk blog -- it linked to an article on The Atlantic's website, which described putting anchovy strips on top of a turkey or goose (breast side up, please!) so that the bird would not just baste itself while cooking, it would season itself, too.

What a great idea! For Christmas, Mom is planning the standards, which include both a turkey and a ham. I want to try it. I know my parents would go for it. My sister would absolutely hate the idea, so I'm thinking of sneaking a tube of anchovy paste in my luggage. Maybe if I rub the breast with that, it will have the same effect without leaving the telltale markings of the fillets.

I'm also tempted to carry it a step further and take a tube of truffle paste and massage some of that into the bird, too, but Helen reaaally hates the smell of truffles. I'll save the truffles for those of us who like it -- I'll bring some cheese.

Variations on a theme

2009-11-15T16:56:00.000-05:00

Apples - cheese - herb - and a splash of something. All together in a tart (mini or otherwise).

Today I ran across a recipe using apple and goat cheese on Seven Spoons -- which leads me to posit that any kind of savory dessert tart can be made from:
1 fruit
1 cheese
1 herb
1 nut
1 liquid to provide added moisture.

I'm thinking of where this could lead me in the future: starting with fruit, I'm imagining wildly different things with cranberries, or tangerines, or even kiwi or star fruit. What would happen with a custard apple? Or a passionfruit? Or if I start with cheeses, I can go wild, strong, mellow, or mild: the range from a hard nutty flavour through a blue cheesiness or over to goat or sheep or go mild with ricotta or buffalo mozarella. Nuts can be strong or pungent or contribute their own special oil. Wow, what a kaleidoscope of flavours to be had!

Let me know if you decide to make a tart, and what combination you choose to use.

Why we can't allow food to be Walmart-ized

2009-11-08T18:40:00.003-05:00

Good article at Ethicurean. All about the variety and number of jobs that are created by a small town having its own downtown grocery store.
Of course, much the same logic applies for all businesses in small towns: everyone loses when all goods are imported from elsewhere, and the only jobs are minimum-wage greeters and "sales associates".

Getting the urge

2009-11-08T17:46:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again. Thinking about creamy mushroom soup.

Last night's dinner

2009-11-08T17:24:00.003-05:00

Was great fun.
We started with olives and spicy cheddar spread and two varieties of Evelyn's crackers, which I bought at Scheffler's Deli at the St. Lawrence market. There were some olives stuffed with cheese, some kalamatas, and the winner of the night (for the olives) was definitely the ones stuffed with lemon. Really a wonderful flavour, and good firmness.

I had bought a can of lemon-stuffed olives back in late winter at The Olive Pit, and while they were OK (in martinis!) they were a little on the soft side.

The munchies were accompanied by a really nice bottle of Thirty Bench Small Lot 'Rose' VQA vintage 2008, which was lovely and tasted like the last gasp of summer. It's a really small lot wine: the label states that only 326 cases of it were produced.

From there we moved to a salad that Betty made that included mixed greens, dried apricots, blue cheese, and walnuts, all perfectly wilted under a hot vinaigrette. At this point we got into the Chateau Saint-Germain 2007 Bordeaux superieur, which carried us through the main course, too.

For the main, we had a cassoulet. Unlike the last one I made that just about blanded me to death, I put a lot of flavour in this one. I started with a really spicy chorizo sausage from The Sausage King that I browned in the Dutch oven and then put aside, then put into the same pot onions, shallots, garlic, and celery and sautéed until everything was nice and glistening and transparent where appropriate in the duck fat that I had used to cook the sausages. I added a can of organic diced tomatoes, bouquet garni, bay leaves, thyme, and salt, and brought to a boil. Then, the 400g (dry weight) of white northern beans that I soaked overnight. Added about a litre of water (enough to cover the beans) and simmered for two hours.

Next stage, I removed the celery, bouquet garnis, thyme, and bay leaves, and cut the sausages into bite-sized pieces and put them in the bottom of a large enameled casserole, on top of squares of pork skin from the pork belly (cooked for two hours the night before), which lined the bottom of the pot. Added sliced goose breast (from Thanksgiving dinner) and big cubes of pork belly. Put the beans on top, and into the oven for an hour and a half, covered. Then put bread crumbs and melted butter over the top and broiled until toasty brown.

And that was that course.

Dessert consisted of the apple-pecan-blue cheese tart. I made my own pate brisee and used whey butter in it, which I think added good flavour, but I could have completely omitted the salt from the recipe (which I had cut in half because the whey butter was salted). I used a blue Eremite cheese this time, which worked well. The tart was served with a really lovely 10 year old Port that Sandy and Damir brought: Warre's Otima10, a Port house since 1670. Delicious port!

After dinner, it was time for games: Wii Sport Resort is lots of fun, lots of giggles, and I obviously should never be given control of a small watercraft.

Eat well!

Stage 2 of cassoulet almost done

2009-11-07T14:51:00.000-05:00

Beans cooking with spicy chorizo sausage, diced tomatoes, onion, shallot, garlic, celery, bay leaves, bouquet garni, and a couple of sprigs of thyme (and about a tsp of sea salt). Definitely not going to be bland like the last one!
Comes off the stove at 3, and then I'll try to pile it into my ceramic dish (hmm. will it fit?) together with pork belly and goose breasts. On to cook for another two hours at 4 (I don't think we'll need it before 6). Finish with some panko breadcrumbs and melted butter.

Bought some really interesting butter yesterday at the market (funny, I had just read about it on a blog within the last week). Whey butter. Someone said it had more flavour to it. I'll find out today, both as it tops the cassoulet, and as the butter ingredient in the pate brisée that will surround the apples, thyme, maple syrup, and blue cheese.

Spicy cheddar & beer spread

2009-11-07T09:28:00.000-05:00

8 ounces grated old white cheddar
1 tbsp and a bit of Worcestershire sauce
14 shakes of Tabasco sauce
About a teaspoon and a half of paprika
1 ancho chili, ripped to little bits
Put in a food processor, slowly drizzle in about 4 oz of good beer -- more or less, depending on how much moisture is in the cheese.

Blend until smooth, refrigerate. Give it a few hours for the flavors to blend. Remove from fridge about a half-hour before serving.

Prepping for another cassoulet

2009-11-05T20:44:00.000-05:00

I have a lovely piece of pork belly in the fridge, rubbed all over with oregano, thyme, rosemary, and garlic. I will cook it tomorrow night in a very slow oven, as Michael Ruhlman did for his BLT from Scratch (200F with a splash of water in foil for 3-4 hours) but I'll only half-cook it, and finish it in the beans.
I will take out of the freezer tonight a lovely goose breast or two, and let it slowly thaw in the fridge.
Tomorrow I will buy some yummy sausages.
I will put beans on to soak tomorrow night.
And it will all come together on Saturday afternoon, together with another apple-blue cheese-pecan tart.
Saturday night will be fun, regardless of the weather.

I will make that tart again, with adjustments

2009-10-29T21:44:00.002-04:00

I made Sooah's Facebook-posted tart (apple-nut-blue cheese) last night for the office Hallowe'en potluck today.

I will make it again in a week.
With a modification.

I used store-bought crust. I'll make a proper pâte brisée next time.

And I won't make the mistake I made this time.

I doubled the crusts, doubled the apples... and woke up this morning with the realization that I hadn't doubled the maple syrup, thyme, nuts, or cheese.

I masked my error by putting some clotted cream on top of the tarts (it was a good fix). The tart was still savory, but not as packed with nutty goodness and blue cheese contrast to Granny Smith apples. I think the amount of thyme was just about right, though, and could have been a bit much had it been doubled. The pecans worked as well as walnuts, to my taste, without the walnut bitterness.

I'll get it right next Saturday night, and serve it with something like a Taylor-Fladgate port for a savory dessert.

Me wants! Wii software

2009-10-27T23:48:00.001-04:00

Courtesy of Signe Langford's blog, I investigated the link to Cook or be Cooked.
Oh, I want that.
Maybe I'd learn something; maybe not.
But it must be more fun than fishing is!
It uses both the Wiimote and the nunchuk.
I'm not seeing it available on the online store front yet, but I'll be keeping my eyes open. I'm having friends over for cassoulet and apple/pecan/gorgonzola tart on Nov. 5th, and it would be grand if we could play something like that.

PONDER IT - Healthzone.ca

2009-10-27T08:39:00.003-04:00

PONDER IT - Healthzone.ca

I'm seriously considering this "piece of news" about why people choose to drink white wine with fish (although it is my preference, I could really make an argument for specific reds with black cod, mackerel, fresh sardines, etc.)

One thing that keeps ringing in my mind is all those years of watching the original Iron Chef series, done in Japan.

The chefs would do so many things to fish to guarantee they didn't taste at all "fishy."

Now, we're not talking about old, funky fish that they've cut the heads off and reduced to fillets so people can't tell how long the fish has been in the monger's ice-filled case. We're talking about extremely fresh, top of the line, wallet-breaking fresh fish.

Yet still, they took actions to prevent the fish from tasting "fishy."
When I eat Portuguese sardines roasted on the grill (or raw) I am celebrating the fishiness of what I am eating. Same for a beautiful slice of raw mackerel with ginger for sashimi.

This test was also done with Japanese people, so I admit, I am attributing some of the biases of the Japanese judges and chefs to the rest of the populace. What, exactly, was the criterion of "fishiness" that the testers found so off-putting? Especially since it was scallops they were eating! These aren't even fish: they're bivalves.

It couldn't have been that the scallops tasted like fish at all (as seemed to be the base line on Iron Chef): was it that the red wine made it taste like old, rancid-oil, fish? Or was it something else? Was it all in the minds of the testers, and not their tastebuds?

Need. More. Data.

Thomas Keller's coming to town - thestar.com

2009-10-26T08:43:00.000-04:00

Thomas Keller's coming to town - thestar.com

Hmm... decisions, decisions. The book sounds interesting to me (even the negative review I read made me want to have it).

To go or not to go?

80 bucks.

Just because of harvest season

2009-10-24T19:28:00.002-04:00

One of my photos. Available for sale at FinerWorks

Could a tart be in my future?

2009-10-24T11:51:00.001-04:00

Courtesy of Sooah, who posted the link on Facebook, comes Apple Walnut Gorgonzola Rustic Tart
It looks simple enough. A total of 7 ingredients (should one buy tart dough, which I think I will).

The ingredients sound absolutely yummy together, although I am tempted to replace the walnuts with pecans (I confess I find walnuts reaaaally bitter). I love the combination of a blue cheese and nuts and fruit, and am thinking of pairing it up with some port to serve for friends along with cassoulet for dinner in a few weeks.

Maybe I'll try making a mini one. Just to test it out first.

Planning stage: cassoulet

2009-10-22T05:57:00.000-04:00

OK, the last one was horrible, terrible, bland, overcooked, and unsalvageable.

I have now invited friends over for cassoulet in early November, and I'm not going to try to be a purist this time, and especially won't follow any British recipes for it (unless Heston Blumenthal has written one -- if so, let me know).

I have an absolutely beautiful piece of pork belly that I bought at the north St. Lawrence Market a couple of months ago and froze. I'm thinking of smoking it myself. Can't decide whether to do it outside on my barbecue or to try one of those fancy-schmantsy smoking bags one can supposedly use in the oven. I think I'll probably go for outdoors. Need a new propane tank. Can use some lovely mesquite chips in the iron smoker box.

Another item to solve is the whole sausage thing. I think that our North American tastes tend toward more spices and flavours, so I may investigate the sausages at the south St. Lawrence Market: I know they offer a number of venison sausages, and one of those might be perfect. I'll talk to the people who work there. I've learned a lot from the Market people over the years -- unlike at the supermarket, they know their product, know the best way to cook or serve it, and care about customer service.

There should also be a poultry ingredient in cassoulet, and I've got that taken care of already: two breasts and other body meat from a goose I roasted for Thanksgiving.

So onward, in the cassoulet adventure: if you have any suggestions or recommendations, please let me know!

That's a lot of soup!

2009-10-16T00:25:00.000-04:00

Tuesday evening I took the remaining goose leg and both wings, and used them to make a stock (I reserved the leg meat for the soup). I enriched it with the leftover gravy. Once I had the stock, I added all the vegetables I had roasted with the goose, plus a bunch of carrots that I roasted with a lashing of olive oil and carmelized while I was making the stock. When the veggies were squishable with my tongs, I added a butternut squash that I had cooked on the weekend with the express purpose of adding it to the soup (thanks, Mom, for the recommendation to use the microwave oven).

Cooked until everything was soft, and took my trusty KitchenAide stick blender to it. By that time, it was too late at night to parcel it into individual meals, so it sat in the fridge until tonight. I also needed to buy more containers for freezing, which I purchased and washed on Wednesday.

Tonight I ladled the soup out into the individual serving-sized containers. I have a baker's dozen of soup for lunches and/or dinners. That should, in conjunction with the other frozen meals and soups I have in the freezer, last through until January (I figure I'll eat it once a week).

Roast goose for Thanksgiving

2009-10-12T19:41:00.000-04:00

The day has come! Time to do the bird! The first thing I have to do is make the stuffing, because it has to go in the bird when it first goes in the oven (the veggies will come later).

I brought out all the ingredients and took a picture. 2-day old baguette, canned chestnuts, dried cranberries that soaked in Grand Marnier for 2 days, onion, shallots, garlic, fresh thyme and sage, and salt and pepper.

Yes, I almost forgot the celery. I did remember it though, while I was half-way through tearing the bread up into bits. So it got chopped, along with the rest of the ingredients, and then I added a bit of white wine to moisten the stuffing.

Preheated the oven to 400F, put about 2 cups of water in the bottom of the roaster.

Removed extra neck skin and fat from the cavity of the goose, and then stuffed it. (I rendered the skin and fat in a pot on the stove, using the same process I used for duck in the summer.)

Hold the sides of the vent together with the tail by using a skewer. Tie the wings and legs so they'll stay positioned on the back, and won't flop all over.

Salt, pepper, and thyme.

Put the goose into the roaster breast side up. More salt, pepper, and thyme.

After a half-hour, reduce the temperature to 350F. Baste every half-hour. After the bird has been in the oven for an hour, add the vegetables around it. For this one, I used a bulb of anise, a celeriac root, 3 red onions, a head of garlic (top of it cut off), 8 potatoes, 4 small turnips, and 8 leeks. Why so many vegetables? I plan to turn most of them into a puréed soup.

Because the goose was stuffed, it took longer to roast. Here it is after 3 hours plus a half-hour of standing, 9lbs minus about 2-1/2 cups of fat (which I am saving for other uses).

I used the giblets and neck to make a stock to make gravy, and added the stock to the drippings in the pan. Delicious, if I say so myself!

Planning to roast too many vegetables

2009-10-11T09:05:00.001-04:00

I like my food to multitask, or at least, serve multimeals.

Tomorrow, when I roast the goose, I plan to roast far too many potatoes, carrots, onions, turnips, celeriac, garlic and a bulb of anise. Waaaay too many to have with dinner.

Why?

I thought that all those veggies, roasted in a pan along with goose, would make for a yummy roast harvest vegetable soup. Add to those leftovers the buttercup squash that I'll be cooking and puréeing today. I should be able to use some gravy in the stock (I've got a carton of organic chicken stock that will probably serve as the base. Some of the stuffing will help to thicken the soup. I can take all of those leftovers and use my handy-dandy immersion stick blender to make a creamed soup to which I will add some diced leftover goose.

Freeze in meal-sized containers, and enjoy some reminders of thanksgiving dinner through the winter.

Shoot. Forgot to buy celery.

2009-10-11T08:57:00.000-04:00

Guess I'll be making a trip to Loblaw's today to get a bunch.

I'm going to stuff the goose with a bunch of things, some traditional, and some that aren't so traditional.

I went out with the gang from work on Friday night for a few beers (pinot grigio in my case). Wayne, one of my coworkers, makes a stuffing for turkey that has as some of its ingredients dried cranberries and cashews soaked in Courvoisier for two days. Sounds good to me! Except I decided I'll be using some canned chestnuts instead of cashews, and I didn't want to buy a huge bottle of Courvoisier, so I bought some Grand Marnier instead. Since yesterday, the dried cranberries have been soaking up the liqueur: the smell is wonderful.

Other stuffing ingredients are some 2-day old baguette, fresh thyme and sage, an egg, onion, shallots, pepper & salt. Oh. And the celery I forgot to buy yesterday. Am also contemplating adding some Seville orange slices.

And a goose to go in the roaster

2009-10-09T21:58:00.000-04:00

Well, I left things too late, or maybe, not late enough.

There were no fresh geese left at the market today. DeLisio's sold their last one this morning. They're a good store: if they don't have what you're looking for, they'll tell you where you can get it. So he recommended that I check out the St. Lawrence Mkt North tomorrow morning to see if I could get a fresh one.

Last minute panic set it (what if one isn't there, and everyone else is sold out?) so I went to Sobey's and bought a 4 kg young goose. Any stragglers want to join me for goose & squash & broccoli and gawd knows what else on Monday?

A roaster to call my own!

2009-10-08T21:18:00.001-04:00

Didn't have enough time today to hit the Market at lunch: I just had too many meetings.

Went across the street from the office to Dinetz's and bought a nice Paderno roasting pan. Was on sale for $109, so that seemed good.

While looking for a link to a picture right now, I see that Costco's offering it for $99.00.

Oh well, saved me a couple of hours of TTC time, buying it downtown!

Tomorrow: a goose. Hope I can find a fresh, local, organic one.

Can I resist?

2009-10-07T19:18:00.001-04:00

Thanksgiving weekend is coming, up here in The Great White North.

For about a year, I've been predicting that, over time, goose is going to replace turkey in a lot of homes for holiday feasts.

Why do I think this?

They haven't been overbred to produce birds that can't even stand up at maturity.
Return to older, heirloom foods is going to, at some point, focus on older breeds of birds. The turkey was once a vigorous flying bird. Alas, its export to Europe and then return to North America may have given it a bigger whiter breast, but sure didn't improve its flavour.
Epicureans are rediscovering animal fats — especially organic, grass fed animal fats (much higher in the Omega 3s that you want).
Smaller families means we don't need as much meat as on these monster turkeys. A goose (or for a couple, a duck) will do it.
Dark meat. 'nuf said.

So, I hanker for a goose (don't think like that!).

I was late to the market today, and took a quick look around my fave meat vendor's stall, Witteveen's Meats — alas, no goose. I know that there was frozen goose at one or two of the others — I was hoping to buy fresh. I may have to go there at lunch tomorrow to check out the other vendors (DeLisio, Whitehouse, and La Boucherie).

Follow the Ethicurean!

2009-10-07T19:12:00.000-04:00

I've been a fan of The Ethicurean for a number of years, now. While some of the information is very American, we have to acknowledge that what happens south of the border affects us here, too, since we don't have eternal growing seasons like they do in California and Florida. So it can be worthwhile catching up on what is happening in terms of the Leafy Greens Marketing Board when it tries to add some "food safety" items to its mandate. It will affect what we see come north in the winter for organic or even non-organic greens.

And hey, that's the website where I learned about the Mangalitsa pig.

Caveat Emptor

2009-10-05T21:21:00.000-04:00

While purchasing ingredients for the ill-fated cassoulet, I went in search of a confit of duck legs (yes, I could have confitted them myself, but thought I'd save some time).

Whitehouse Meats at the St. Lawrence Market has some cute little packages (alas, not transparent) of confit of duck. When I asked one of the butchers what the package contains, I was told it held two duck legs. For $12.99, I thought that seemed fair.

As I was preparing to add it to the pot of beans, I discovered that there was only one leg in the vacuum-sealed pouch. Beware of buying food you can't see!

Good-bye Gourmet Magazine

2009-10-05T21:15:00.000-04:00

The bean-counters have been in at Condé Nast for the last few months, and people have been tiptoeing around nervously. Even the editor of The New Yorker was spotted eating in the cafeteria — whether that was to be seen or to be seen not expensing expensive epicurean delights is up to him to say.

Alas, they decided that Gourmet Magazine has to go. People have to clean out their desks immediately, and November's issue will be the last (it's probably already been printed, or is at the printers).

Gourmet is gone: the companion website, Epicurious, is slated to remain open, and the magazine Bon Appetît will continue to publish.

RIP: it was good to know you.

The bland leading the blind

2009-10-05T21:09:00.000-04:00

I call myself blind because I haven't attempted a cassoulet before.

Do not, I implore you, follow that recipe I linked. The results are so bland I've had difficulties forcing myself to eat it. Actually, I ate it two and a half times, and put the rest in the city compost container.

The recipe on Epicurious seems much better. As does practically any recipe that calls for reasonable amounts of herbs and spices. I should have worried when it only had 4 cloves of garlic, sliced in half, and one bouquet garni for enough cassoulet for 8 people.

Even the recipe on The French Food and Cook seems a bit bland, but at least has bacon and 10 cloves of garlic.

I'm going to have to try again. But right now, I'm just glad I didn't serve it to my friends!

Hunting the cassoulet

2009-10-03T19:29:00.000-04:00

So many variations!
It's strange: some recipes are standard. Everyone knows them, knows the ingredients, knows the unchanging way to prepare them.

Do a search on cassoulet recipes, and discover quite the opposite!

It is definitely a Provençal meal over which writers wax poetic.

I decided to test-drive a cassoulet recipe before doing it for company. I settled upon a fairly simple version, cut it in half, and, once it was mostly cooking (still have to add the sausages, which are browning in the oven, and the confit of duck legs in an hour) I started browsing other recipes.

A mistake, perhaps?

Doubts assail me.

Oh no -- I used a bouquet garni and this recipe calls for fresh thyme! And this one over here -- it calls for more than twice as much garlic! Did I use enough salt? Pepper? I looked up the ingredients of Toulouse sausage, and it seems to be pretty standard breakfast sausages, so I used them. Was I wrong? Oh no! This recipe for Toulouse sausage has a lot more herbs! This recipe calls for goose fat, that one, olive oil.

I have duck confit, and it's hunting season, so I really should have used partridge! (I will when I do it for my friends).

So I will cook, and taste, and then consider the variants and which way to take it next time, for my friends, on a blustery fall day.

Chef turned food blogger

2009-09-28T19:56:00.000-04:00

Signe Langford was the chef at The Riverside Cafe, where friends and I used to go for martinis and mussels. Many types of martinis on the menu, and many different broths in which mussels were steamed to perfection. Alas, she moved on, and the last I had heard, was thrilling people in Yorkville.

Another change, another career: she's now the food blogger at Moses Znaimer's Zoomer Magazine. Have a read of her blog! She's worth following.

Snails, snails, snails

2009-09-20T19:31:00.001-04:00

I have a can of them in my pantry, crying to be used.

I ate some excellent snails at Batifole, a French bistro at Gerrard near deGrassi.
These weren't the standard snails in garlic butter: they were in a creamy sauce that might have had a splash of something added to them.

I also had some yummy snails at Fare Bistro. I've eaten them many times, enjoying each time.

With these delicious tastes in my memory, I went searching for recipes. Alas, most were pretty boring, and pretty much the same thing: snails in garlic butter, served either in the shell or in mushroom caps.

Then I happened on this site.
I'm still going through it, but I thought you might enjoy the recipes.

Tutti Matti

2009-08-30T08:42:00.000-04:00

Tutti Matti is a Tuscan restaurant, and the food it serves is excellent.

Sandy, Betty and I ate there last night to celebrate Sandy's birthday, and we had a grand old time!
Accompanied by a Chianti Classico, we started with some fresh bread, served with olive oil and a lovely well-aged basalmic vinegar. The bread was perfectly chewy, with a thin, brittle crust that was a delight to eat.

Over bread and wine we decided on our appetizers:
Prosciutto four ways (with melon, with fig, with peach (and I forget the fourth)
Carpaccio affumaicato: two beautiful displays of carpaccio, one of smoked duck breast, the other, smoked venison
The third had lightly smashed peas on a crostini draped with thin slices of pork (the sign for the restaurant is a wild boar: we had to have some pig!) It was drizzled with a tuna sauce. Tuna sauce! I had never heard of it before, but it was lovely, and I'm going to have to find a recipe for it. It would be excellent drizzled over some white beans, pasta, probably would work with many different things.

I think we were all agreed that the smoked venison carpaccio was one of those things you'll always remember having eaten. We also fell all over the prosciutto-wrapped baked peach. It was sinful. Almost at the foie gras level of sin. It tasted so rich, so flavourful, so balanced -- and the flavour just sort of sneaked up on you half-way through the second chew, and spread. All of them were delicious, and we agreed that we've never found bad food at any of our yummy dinners: we're all willing to try just about anything.

For mains, Betty and I opted for the ravioli stuffed with lobster and ricotta, served in a butter-sage sauce with some amazingly fresh green peas. Sandy had the pappardelle con stracotto. I fell in love with my ravioli. I think there was a little bit of lemon zest in the ravioli which gave it a nice zing to deal with all the richness of the dish. Sandy's pappardelle dish was awesome, rich, flavourful and just the thing for an autumn-feeling evening. Betty regretted having the ravioli and wished she ordered pappardelle as well. The sauce was positively unctuous.

How does one top all those dishes with a dessert? We went for the small cheese plate and the biscotti plate, and an Italian dessert wine that was thick and raisiny and light amber. They completed the meal, and finished it on a high note.

Chef Alida Solomon is to be complimented for her savvy preparations and the freshness of her ingredients.

While talking over dinner, we decided that we'll celebrate Sandy's next birthday in Tuscany. We have a year to plan.

Eating tapas @ Torito on Augusta Ave.

2009-08-29T17:13:00.000-04:00

Sandy and I ate there last night. We enjoyed each tapas dish, and returned after the cabaret show for figs with blue cheese and sherry.

Fresh food: lovely marinated food: yummy rich comfort food -- it was all there on the menu. If I tried to pick a dish that still stands out in my mind almost a day later, I'd say it was the rabbit with peach chutney. The rabbit was shredded, and I think it was confit cooked (I noticed later that they also had confit of rabbit leg on the menu). It had a crispy richness and tenderness to it that seems to be the calling card of food that has been slow cooked in fat, and then rapidly seared just before serving to provide some crunch to it.

The peaches that accompanied it were julienned, cooked or at least mascerated in a liquid that did the cooking, and tasted of cinnamon and cloves. It was an excellent complement to the rabbit.

Other items on the menu were like perfect ballroom dance pairs: you know they dance well together, and they never cease to please: one of those is arugula paired with some shavings of a dry, hard cheese. At Torito, the dressing was lovely, light, and included quince. An addition of toasted almonds made it very scrumptious.

Soups? We started with the creamed Jerusalem Artichoke soup, decorated with some chili oil and completely scrumptious fried onions in a pile on top. Sandy's lucky I didn't steal them all... or maybe I'm lucky she didn't!

An excellent meal.

We had the 3 course special (of which there was a donation included to STOP, an organization to help feed people) followed by other dishes (hmm. sardines, salad, and a rich rich ground lamb dish, if I recall correctly). Plus drinks.

Old tyme pork

2009-08-23T19:23:00.000-04:00

Modern factory pork. Blah. No flavour, no texture, no real reason to eat it.
Places like The Black Hoof in Toronto get it: pork is all about the texture, the taste, the fat permeating the meat. I shared, with two friends, a stuffed pork snout on my birthday. It was a dish to savour and remember.

Websurfing a few weeks ago, I ran across a description of Wooly pigs, a breed seldom seen on this continent.

Look at this and tell me you don't want some. One day, one day.

Yet another blog? Yup.

2009-08-23T19:21:00.001-04:00

I keep doing these specialized blogs, compartmentalizing my life, putting things into neat little parcels.
This one -- epiglutton -- is about being an epicurean -- some might say glutton -- but one only eats that way occasionally. Generally, one aims to eat healthily.

Let us see how far I get with this.